I beheld the fabled Horn of Babylon. Men had killed for this. Men had died for it. Men had sometimes worshipped it as a god in its own right, and sometimes as a vessel of godly power. Who had originally made it, and when, and for what purpose, were questions I hadn’t been able to answer when I was in a position to ask them of others. It was a waste of time to ask them now. All that could be said for sure was that, in its form, it had been made as some kind of vessel. You could argue whether its bowl had been made to hold wine or to collect blood from a sacrifice. I had no doubt it had been used for both.
I say I beheld it. Even if it didn’t now have the colour and sheen of rotten teeth wet with spittle, I’d not have been able to see the marks that covered it inside and out — not with my old eyes. But, if I ran a thumbnail over it, I could still feel the mass of characters, each one resembling nothing so much as the footprint of a tiny bird on wax. I couldn’t read them. Though men had done well out of claiming otherwise, I doubted anyone had been able to read them in the past thousand years. I doubted anyone knew the name of the winged god they surrounded. So much fuss over an object steeped in mystery!
I sniffed and looked up. I’d left a cup of barley juice on the table. Without my falsies to keep my lips firm, I slobbered much of this on to the blanket I still had round me. I must have made a disgusting sight, but the taste was strangely cheering. I could easily guess what fancies had drifted the day before through the mind of poor old Theodore. But the past only hurts you if you let it. The opium had betrayed me. Awake and in my proper mind, I’d make sure the past stayed exactly where it belonged.
I stared again out of the window. The steam that rose above the forest would soon clear. Whether or not it rained again, I’d make sure it was a lovely day.
Chapter 2
I once knew a poet called Leander. He was an Egyptian and, like me, had learned Greek as a foreign language. Unlike me, he never learned it well enough to adorn even the lower reaches of its literature. He was a dreadful poet, and I can almost rejoice that, away from his native Egypt, books written on papyrus die within fifty years unless recopied. What brings him now to mind is his habit, when he wanted attention, of stopping whatever he was doing to cry in a grand voice: ‘I can feel the Muse about to come upon me!’ I’ll not go quite so far as that. But I do feel that what began as one of my occasional diary entries ought to form part of a longer narrative. At the very least, since I’ve mentioned it, I should explain how I came to take possession once more of the Horn of Babylon.
This means the story doesn’t begin on Wednesday the 17th, but on Monday the 15th. It had been another promising dawn, though Ambrose made sure to spoil it, by shouting and threatening me out of my bed. Still, teeth cleaned and polished and pushed well back, wig on the right way round, I think I looked rather good in my wheelbarrow. Even Ambrose didn’t roar with laughter at my appearance.
We came to the point where the street leading from my place of confinement joined with the main square. ‘Put me down here a moment,’ I said to the boy who was pushing me. ‘I feel the need of a rest before showing myself to the people.’
‘You’re late as it is,’ Ambrose grunted with a nervous look at the sky.
I cupped a hand to my bad ear. ‘I hear no complaints from those who are waiting,’ I said brightly. To the boy: ‘Put the handles down and fan me with your hat.’ To Ambrose: ‘You’d surely not want me to die before I can assist in Gebmund’s inquiry.’
Ambrose took on the appearance of a caged animal when it looks through its bars. ‘Inquiry, my cock!’ he snarled. ‘You’re on trial for your fucking life!’
I gave him a flash of my nice teeth and added a look of faint senility. ‘Oh, is that why I’m a prisoner?’ I asked. I looked at the boy. If I wasn’t mistaken, his spots were all inflamed. Either he was feeling the morning chill, or he was still hurting from the buggery Ambrose had inflicted on him while I was deciding which hat to put on over my wig. It was probably the latter. I leaned back on the filthy padding. ‘Oh, let’s just get it over with,’ I sighed. I reached inside my woollen robe. I hadn’t left my double strength oil of frankincense behind. I unstoppered the pot and shook some of it down the front of my robe.
I was halfway across the square, when the crowd outside the church struck up a respectable cheer. Rattled by the sudden noise, the boy twisted my wheelbarrow to give me sight of the crowd. I took off my hat and waved it. That got me a louder cheer.
‘Not a word, you old fool,’ Ambrose said into my good ear. ‘If you cause another riot, it’ll be the worse for you.’
‘If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head,’ I replied through a fixed smile, ‘I may see to it that you don’t have a head.’ I leaned forward and jabbed my stick into the boy’s stomach. ‘Come on,’ I urged. ‘You mustn’t keep the people waiting.’ He gave me the stupid look of one who hasn’t heard, but doesn’t want to admit he wasn’t listening. I repeated myself, now louder. He swallowed and dropped both handles of his wheelbarrow. Its impact had the blond wig straight off my head and into the dust. By the time it was recovered, I’d decided against putting it back on. Instead, I sat up and tried to look as dignified as a bald, shrivelled old thing ever can. ‘Well, come on, boy,’ I prompted. ‘It isn’t us they want to string up — no, not even Brother Ambrose today.’
Even as the boy got ready for one of his pubescent squawks, there was a loud groan, and the crowd took a collective step backwards and to the left. ‘There he is!’ someone shouted. ‘Oh, but hasn’t he got a nerve!’ someone else said.
It wasn’t that much of a nerve, to be fair. As the crowd broke into a low and disapproving chatter, I twisted round on my cushions and saw that Brother Aelfwine had followed us across the square. Flanked by his two elder brothers and any number of cousins and family hangers on, he had a strained look on his face even I could see. I thought he’d hurry past, so he could be in place before everyone else squeezed into the church. But he saw I was looking in his direction and hurried over.
‘Greetings, Brother Aelric,’ he said stiffly in Latin. Impassive, I looked back at him. I couldn’t doubt he was a pretty lad — far too pretty for a monk. What else, though, could he be but pretty? Not only Kentish, he was of royal blood. Being both myself, however much decayed, I may be biased. But, now we’ve given up on putting butter in our hair and rings through our noses, you’ll search hard to find a handsomer race than the better class of Kentishmen. No tonsure was enough to conceal his advantages of birth.
He leaned forward. ‘Why don’t you just confess?’ he whispered. ‘I’ll see to it that Gebmund gives you his mildest penance ever. Family is family, after all.’ He tilted his head at the crowd. ‘Must we inflame the common people any further?’
‘I have perfect faith that, when My Lord Bishop of Rochester has heard me, there will be no more talk of penances.’ I said loudly in English. For just a moment, he looked me in the eye. Then he looked away and breathed something that I couldn’t catch but got his flunkies into a dark mood. I was still trying to tell if the biggest of these wasn’t one of the King’s bastard sons, when I heard the doors of the great church open far across the square and, in a crowd of monks and deacons, Aelfwine’s cousin and mine began a slow and almost visibly unwilling progress towards the place appointed for his court of inquiry.
Leaning forward on his big chair, Bishop Gebmund looked nervously round the church. ‘For the benefit of our brethren from overseas,’ he stammered, ‘we shall conduct these proceedings entirely in Latin.’ I blew my nose loudly enough to be heard at the back of the crowded nave. In all decency, he hadn’t been able to keep the common people out. Looking surly, they sat cross-legged on the floor. One way or another, I’d find a way to keep them generally informed.